


before the devil even knows

by glitteringconstellations



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [7]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Blood and Injury, Buried in rubble, Earthquakes, Gen, Hunk and Keith help each other through a tight spot, Impalement, No one dies don't worry, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-14 14:42:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18478351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteringconstellations/pseuds/glitteringconstellations
Summary: Coping mechanisms were weird.Lance used humor as a shield, a buffer between himself and all the horrors the universe had to throw at him. Pidge used logic, because logic waslogicaland when things made sense, things were easier to deal with. Shiro’s coping by blocking things out probably wasn’t healthy, now that he thought about it, but would Hunk blame him? Nope.As for Hunk, he didn’t cope. He skipped straight past coping and dove right intopanic.





	before the devil even knows

**Author's Note:**

> hayyyyy lookit me i'm actually writing a thing??? bad things happen bingo prompt: buried in rubble requested by anon with hunk and keith as the focus. i hope i did this justice! i'm not happy with the ending (lol how do endings) but i love their dynamic, so this was fun to write.

Coping mechanisms were weird.

Lance used humor as a shield, a buffer between himself and all the horrors the universe had to throw at him. Pidge used logic, because logic was _logical_ and when things made sense, things were easier to deal with. Shiro’s coping by blocking things out probably wasn’t healthy, now that he thought about it, but would Hunk blame him? Nope.

As for Hunk, he didn’t cope. He skipped straight past coping and dove right into _panic_. Usually.

Usually, he didn’t have a bleeding-out red Paladin lying prone beneath him. Usually, he wasn’t trapped beneath several metric tons of rubble, the only thing keeping it from crushing them both being the adrenaline pumping in his veins and pure, dumb luck. Usually, it wasn’t up to him to keep a level head to keep from being, well, levelled.

Much of the weight fell onto another piece of debris that jutted up and outwards towards the both of them, but it wobbled tremulously. If they were hit by another aftershock, they were done for. The rest of that weight, however, fell squarely onto Hunk’s back. His arms trembled, but he kept them locked for all he was worth, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. He wouldn’t let Keith down. He _wouldn’t_.

Don’t panic.

Keith… was not doing so hot. Understatement of the year. His breathing came staggered and crackling, a trickle of crimson dribble snaking from the corner of his mouth. And that was just what he could see in the light of his headlamp, dimmed by the haze of dust and obscured by the soot smeared across his visor. He couldn’t look further down than Keith’s collarbones, not without risking the rubble shifting overtop of them. _What would Pidge do?_ Hunk thought desperately.

Assess. He sucked in a steadying breath. Right.

Don’t panic.

“Alright, I’m gonna need you to stay with me, Keith,” Hunk said. His voice came out steady, not like his rabbiting heartbeat in his chest. Amazing. “Talk to me, buddy. Where are you hurt?”

“Uh…” Keith’s tongue darted out and licked dry, cracked lips, blown-out pupils flittering and darting. Hunk frowned. Trouble focusing, he noted mentally. “Uh, right. Hit my head. Hurts p-pretty bad. Can’t see too well and ‘m dizzy. And it h-hurts to breathe.” Stuttering, too? A concussion, most likely, then. Nothing short of that would turn off Keith’s brain to mouth filter like this.

“Okay,” Hunk breathed. “Okay. That’s good. I mean, that’s really _not_ good. Actually, it sounds pretty bad, if I’m totally honest with you, but it’s good you’re being straight with me. But I mean, you’re gonna be fine. Really.”

Keith snorted. “E-ever the optimist.”

Hunk wouldn’t deign that with a response. At least he was in well enough spirits to joke. “Anywhere else?”

Keith managed to lift his head a few mere inches but fell back with a pained groan after only a moment. “I, uh… can’t feel my legs.” He shifted, shimmying his arms up between their chests and splaying blood-soaked hands on Hunk’s breastplate. Just that action alone left him panting. “T-try not to collapse onto me, alright?”

“Don’t worry, dude. I’m not gonna let this thing fall on us. The only spine getting crushed today is mine.”

“N-no, there’s…” Keith licked his lips again. More blood dribbled down his chin. “There’s a… a pipe. Sticking out of me. If you fall, it’ll s-skewer you, too.”

Oh. _Oh_. A tremor ran down Hunk’s spine, straight from his neck down to the tips of his toes.

Don’t panic. Don’t panic. _Don’t panic_.

“That… that’s definitely bad,” Hunk choked out. He could already see the grisly wound in his mind’s eye, and now he was hyper-aware of the stench of hot copper pooling beneath them both. He wanted to shake his head, but resisted, barely. 

Don’t panic now. Cope now, panic later. Humor. Lance always went with humor, right? 

“I mean, I don’t know about you, but I don’t think you’d make a very good Keith kabob.”

Keith actually managed a garbled laugh, one that quickly devolved into a coughing fit. He keened, high and terrible, wrenching his eyes shut as he gasped for air. Blood bubbled from his lips, splattering across Hunk’s face and visor. He pushed weakly against Hunk’s chest; whether out of reflex or a desire to ground himself, Hunk didn’t know.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Hunk stammered. “I promise, no more stupid jokes, okay? Just breathe.” He wanted so badly to reach out and just… Hug him. Hugs made everything better. Keith’s face tightened with agony, shadows that danced along his face sharply contrasted by the light of the headlamp. Hunk dug his fingers into the soil so hard he thought they might bleed.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry, Keith. Please don’t die.”

“I don’t p-plan on it,” Keith ground out.

Think, think, _think!_ Hunk couldn’t do this alone. He needed help. They both did. Keith was going to die there beneath him because Hunk couldn’t do anything but sit there and hold up some stupid rubble from a stupid earthquake—did they even call them earthquakes on other planets?!—that trapped them and cut them off from the others and he couldn’t even call for help because he couldn’t even reach his comm and even if he _could_ reach his comm would the others even hear him?

“ _Hunk!_ ”

Warm, wet hands on his cheeks brought Hunk’s spiraling thoughts to a grinding halt. The hands gripped him steady, but not painfully so. Keith’s wide, dilated eyes bore into him, the intensity behind them taking Hunk aback.

“D-don’t you check out on me,” Keith said fiercely. As fiercely as he could, anyway, heaving for air between nearly every word. “You n-need to… to breathe.”

Had he stopped breathing? Hunk hadn’t realized.

He panicked.

Keith must have seen the wild look in his eyes because he patted Hunk’s cheek once, twice, a third time for good measure. “C-come on, man. Breathe. If ’m not… not allowed to stop b-breathing, you aren’t, either.”

Hunk took a deep breath of stale, earthen air. “Okay. Okay, yeah. You’re right.”

“G-good.” Keith mustered a wan grin. Somehow, the bloody teeth did little to soothe Hunk’s frayed nerves. “’m not d-dying here, Hunk. I _won’t_. You s-said it yourself. I’ll… be fine. _We’ll_ be f-fine. Got it?”

Another deep breath.

“Yeah. Yeah, I got it.” 

He could do this. 

They would get through this. The thought of two defenders of the universe, dying in a pile of stupid rubble on some stupid, no name planet because of something as stupid as an earthquake… No. Keith was right. They _wouldn’t_ die here. Not Keith, not him. Still…

“This is hell,” he groaned. A smirk graced Keith’s face. A pained one, no doubt, but a smirk nonetheless. He let his hands fall down to his sides, seemingly assured that Hunk wasn’t going to keep spiraling. 

“Well, you k-know what they… what they say about if you’re g-going through hell.” 

“Get the hell out?” 

Keith nodded. “Before the d-devil even knows you’re t-there.” 

Hunk couldn’t bite back the hysterical laugh that tore past his lips. “Well, I don’t know about the devil, but maybe before the Galra know we’re here. That’d be good.” 

Silence fell between them. For a moment Hunk listened to the shallow breaths Keith took, watched the irregular rise and fall of his chest. It wasn’t exactly comforting, but it did mean Keith was still breathing. Keith, who was gravely injured ( _and probably dying_ , his mind supplied, which he promptly squashed), but kept that flame in him alight. He often wondered, before all this, how Keith coped with things. 

It occurred to him now that maybe Keith didn’t cope at all. Maybe to Keith, coping wasn’t an option. Maybe it was always do or die, and dying wasn’t part of the plan. 

Maybe Hunk could stand to learn a thing or two from Keith.

**Author's Note:**

> ...and then they were both rescued and keith was tossed in a healing pod and everything was fine \o/


End file.
